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Climate change and ‘last chance tourism’

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Many climate discussions revolve around time. There are lines going up across the graphs predicting the next century. Scientists set deadlines for the coming decades. Every month seems to bring news of a new heat record. The feeling that time is running out can be intoxicating.

As the Earth warms, natural wonders – coral reefs, glaciers, archipelagos – are at risk of damage and disappearance. This has motivated some travelers to engage in ‘last chance tourism’, visiting places threatened by climate change before it is too late.

“For thousands of years, humans have raced to be the first to climb a peak, cross a border, or document a new species or landscape,” Paige McClanahan writes in a piece for The Times. “Now we’re racing to be last in some cases.”

One such destination is the Mer de Glace, the largest glacier in the French Alps, where thousands of people go for skiing every year. (Early tourists included Mary Shelley and Mark Twain.)

The glacier, like many others, is melting rapidly. A new, higher lift recently opened to stay closer to the retreating ice. And a study published last year in the journal Science found that about half of the world’s glaciers will have melted at the end of this centuryeven if countries adhere to the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

“For someone who doesn’t know what it was like in the past, it’s a beautiful scene,” a visitor to the glacier told Paige. “But when you know the difference, it’s really sad.”

There is some evidence that visiting an ecosystem threatened by climate change can make people more aware of their impact on the environment.

In a 2020 survey conducted by researchers at the Mer de Glace, 80 percent of visitors said they would try to learn more about how to protect the environment, and 77 percent said they would reduce their water and energy use.

Some tourist spots have focused on education. In Peru, officials have renamed the Pastoruri Glacier trek “La Ruta del Cambio Climático‘, or ‘The route of climate change’. And in the Mer de Glace, an exhibition about climate change – called the Glaciorium – will open later this year.

However, there are those who doubt the value of last-chance tourism. Visiting vulnerable environments can do more harm than good.

Some people travel to Antarctica because they fear it will be destroyed. But like Sara Clemence highlighted last year in a piece in The AtlanticTraveling there requires a lot of fuel, while visitors can introduce diseases and harm wildlife. And research by University of Waterloo academic Karla Boluk found that the majority of last-chance tourists to two locations in Canada were unwilling to pay extra to offset the carbon footprint of their trip.

“There is an ethical paradox of last-chance tourism,” Boluk told The Times, “and it is about the moral question of whether travelers recognize and respond to the harm they cause.”

Read Paige’s full story here.

Should Michigan’s protest vote worry Biden?

Yes. That 100,000 Michigan voters expressed dissatisfaction with Biden, many over his handling of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, is a problem for him. “The Biden campaign must deal with how the president’s policies could impact his reelection efforts,” USA Today’s Sara Pequeño writes.

No. There are more moderates who agree with Biden’s policies than progressives who disagree with him. “It would be a mistake to think that shifting his policies to the left would be a net gain for him.” John Halpin writes for CNN.

Hidden history: A windswept island in the English Channel, Alderney feels like a remote retreat. During World War II it was a place of Nazi atrocities.

Thank you: As a boy in Pakistan, Airaj Jilani idolized Elvis. Decades later in the US, he still has his passion – and his impeccable impersonation.

Vows: Their business language turned into a language of love.

Lives lived: Nancy Wallace helped transform the Bronx River from a watery graveyard for cars and appliances into an urban green belt for New York City. She died at the age of 93.

The AI ​​industry continues to flourish and address our concerns. In late 2022, I spoke with pioneering researcher Yejin Choi, who is working on developing common sense and ethical reasoning in AI

Can you explain what “common sense” means in the context of teaching AI?

It is the unspoken, tacit knowledge that you and I have. It is so obvious that we often don’t talk about it. You and I know that birds can fly, and we know that penguins generally cannot. So AI researchers thought, we can code this: Birds usually fly, except penguins. But in fact, newborn baby birds cannot fly, and birds covered with oil cannot fly. The point is that exceptions are not exceptional, and you and I can think of them even if no one told us. It’s not that simple for AI

What do you find most exciting about your work in AI right now?

I am enthusiastic about value pluralism. Another way to put it is that there is no universal truth. Many people feel uncomfortable about this. As scientists we are trained to be very precise and to strive for one truth. Now I think: there is no universal truth: can birds fly or not? Moral rules: There must be a moral truth. For example, don’t kill people. But what if it’s a mercy killing? Than what?

How can you ever teach AI to make moral decisions if almost every rule or truth has exceptions?

AI should learn exactly that: there are cases that are clearer, and there are cases that are more discretionary. Instead of making binary, one-size-fits-all decisions, it should sometimes make decisions based on This looks really bad. Or you have your point of view, but you understand that half the country thinks differently.

Read more of the interview here.

New Fiction: ‘Wandering Stars’, the sequel to Tommy Orange’s ‘There There’, follows the descendants of a massacre of Native Americans over a century and a half. Our review calls it a towering achievement.

Our editors’ choice: In ‘The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels,’ readers sift through texts, emails and more to discover the story behind a series of occult deaths.

Times bestsellers: “The Chaos Agent,” the 13th book in Mark Greaney’s Gray Man series, is new to the hardcover bestseller list this week.

Check in on your emotional well-being.

Beautiful your dog’s bed.

Feeling safer with a smart security device.

  • North Dakota will hold Republican caucuses tomorrow.

  • Then it’s Super Tuesday. Sixteen states have primaries or caucuses, including California, where Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff are vying for a Senate seat.

  • Biden will deliver the State of the Union address on Thursday.

  • International Women’s Day is Friday.

  • Congress’s deadline to prevent a government shutdown is Friday.

  • Trump will receive Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests making Eric Kim’s Five-ingredient peanut butter noodles, which she calls “a Parmesan classic in the making.” Her other suggestions include an orange-glazed baked salmon, a one-pan crispy chicken and chickpeas, and a cheesy and spicy black bean casserole.

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